New Southbound Policy Portal

Taiwan’s landmark Taipei 101 hosted its annual New Year’s Eve fireworks show, welcoming 2018 with an impressive display of color, light and sound that attracted more than 1 million spectators from home and abroad.
 
Themed Happy Together, the six-minute show featured 16,000 firework shells and sparklers running along the outside of one of the world’s tallest green buildings. The event was broadcast live on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs-backed Trending Taiwan YouTube channel.
 
According to organizer Taipei 101 Financial Center Corp., this year’s visual feast was the longest in the skyscraper’s history. While the number of fireworks was trimmed down to promote environmental sustainability, this was compensated by a light-emitting diode screen set up on the structure’s northern facade, it added.
 
Following a prelude that saw an image of Taiwan baseball legend Chen Chin-feng appear on the building to lead the crowd in a countdown, the fireworks detonated in four stages—Revising Classics, Recreating Classics, Invincible Youth and 2017 in Review.
 
The LED visuals included patterned glass, decorative tiles, window grills and floral patterns found in traditional houses, several well-known financial buildings from the past and present, pop diva A-Mei singing an ancient tribal tune, the silhouettes of nine local athletes who won gold medals at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade, and an image of Taiwan’s Formosat-5 satellite, which was launched last year.
 
First held in 2005, the Taipei 101 fireworks display has become one of the most celebrated events of its kind in the world and is routinely covered by major global media outlets such as the BBC. In 2012, it was named by CNN as one of the world’s 10 best spots for ringing in the New Year. (SFC-E)